Creating my Primaris Space Wolves Chapter

The bikes are a little different from the wolf lord and the troops as they’re pieces of equipment so I thought I’d do a separate entry for them.

You will have seen before that I added some green stuff fur and a few wolf tails/skulls to the mini already.

For painting I following the same process as the wolf lord mostly.

Basecoating was done with Mechanicus standard grey as it worked well for the Lord, not all Contrasts work as it’s darker but many still do.

The base was painted in the same way as I previously did, ie Spray Black, drybrush mech standard grey and administratum grey on the rocks, paint the soil Oak Brown and highlight mornefang brown

Painting

Following the base coat I drybrushed the armour ‘Dawnstone’, I then washed straight away with ‘Agrax Earthshade’. The edge highlights were then painted using ‘Administratum Grey’.

The furs were painted with ‘Contrast Wyldwood’ with a very light drybrush of ‘Zandri Dust’. I also used the contrast paint ‘Blood Angels Red’ to paint the sword, the wax seals and also the diamond on his backpack. While you don’t get the bright vibrant colours from the Contrast paints when using this basecoat these do still look good.

The gold is ‘Retributor Armour’ with a shade of ‘Agrax Earthshade’ and metal was painted with ‘Leadbelcher’ with a shade of ‘Nuln Oil’.

Weathering 

The weathering of the bike is really easy. I’ve found many shy away from doing it but it’s really simple. I explain a little more in the Vlog below but essentially all I do it grab two things, Typhus Corrosion and a weathering powder.

In this instance I used Light Earth from Forgeworld but first I used the Corrosion paint. It’s similar to Nuln oil I suppose but not as thin and gives an oily look. All I do is grab a small tipped brush and literally paint a few streaks coming from the vents or corners of panels. (Watch the vid you’ll se how simple this is).

The powder I just brush onto the model in it’s powder form, all around the bottom of the model, if you use paint for this it gives a very different effect. this looks more like dirt that’s built up over time but doesn’t look to think. Once you spray a sealant over it holds it in place.

The wolf lord needed to look a little different from the Captain you get in the box, the shield just didn’t fit with what I wanted to do and he definitely needed more fur!

I had a spare dreadnought shield as I made the Murderfang instead of the axe and shield dread so that was a must, it was almost the same size as the standard one too.

The cloth was all replaced with greenstuff fir and I used an off cut fur paw to drape over his shoulder too. You can get these in the upgrade sprue.

Speaking of the upgrade sprue I also used the back pack and the ‘frostfang’ style sword too. The wolf tail is actually a plume from the old space wolf helmets and the scull is one from Spellcrow.

I painted the traditional Space wolf blue armour on an old army of mine that is now long gone so for this I wanted to do something different. I tickled with a grey scheme with a 30k force a few years ago and really enjoyed it so I thought I’d give that a go again. I also have some of the Forgeworld transfers which have some cool red wolf heads on so they would be ideal.

For details on how exactly I painted the wolf lord and my thought process while doing it, watch the painting Vlog below. But, for the main choices of colour I’ll tell you now.

Following the base coat I drybrushed the armour ‘Dawnstone’, I then washed straight away with ‘Agrax Earthshade’. The edge highlights were then painted using ‘Administratum Grey’.

The furs were painted with ‘Contrast Wyldwood’ with a very light drybrush of ‘Zandri Dust’. I also used the contrast paint ‘Blood Angels Red’ to paint the sword, the wax seals and also the diamond on his backpack. While you don’t get the bright vibrant colours from the Contrast paints when using this basecoat these do still look good.

The gold is ‘Retributor Armour’ with a shade of ‘Agrax Earthshade’ and metal was painted with ‘Leadbelcher’ with a shade of ‘Nuln Oil’.

He’s finished!

I love the look of him, especially from the angle above. The Dreadnought shield definitely sets him apart from the rest of the minis, though, I’m still not convinced with the way he’s holding it. I think the fur around the back of his head really sets it off too.

Here’s a few more shots of him but I’m off to paint the rest!

When it came to the Chaplain I wanted him to be as equally wolfy and the rest and actually look like a Wolf Priest rather than a Chaplain painted similarly to the rest of my army.

The staff top was removed and relaced with a winged skull that was in an old upgrade sprue. I think this usually would’ve gone on the back of a backpack but it works well here. I also put a wolf tail on the bottom.

The head was from the old Space wolf packs that I had spare and I used a little wolf skull motif on the backpack.

I also green stuffed the whole of the cloak he has and did the same as described below creating fur. I also added a couple of wolf skulls within this. One was a GW one from an old space wolf box and the other with a cracked skull from spellcrow.

The next stage of course was to base coat him. I used Wraith bone, which has pretty much become my go-to base coat now!!

So I’ve linked my painting Vlog below so you can follow along and see how I go on. But if you haven’t time to watch it I’ll go through some of the main paint choices now.

Because I went with the contrast wraith bone base I decided to go ahead and use some contrast paints for ease and speed.

The main one being the contrast Black Templar which covered the whole of the armour. I picked out the silver in the areas between armour plates with leadbelcher, the raised ‘bolts’ around the armour are simply just the contrast, nothing else needed to get that effect.

The furs were Contrast Wyldwood and all the bone and parchment was based with Contrast Skeleton Horde. These all gave a great colour straight away with very little effort compared to painting ‘normally’.

The gold is Retributor Armour with a shade of Nuln oil, I also used this on the leadbeltcher.

The rest of the details are pretty self explanatory but if you want to know more I go into detail on the Vlog below.

He’s finished!

I was a little worried about how light the black armour looked but now he’s completely done I’m really pleased with the look!

The snow is looking awesome around the base and really changing the mini. I also love how the parchment looks with the ‘text’

As previously mentioned the Primaris marines simply weren’t wolfy enough for me so I grabbed my bits box and some green stuff and got to work.
I’ve detailed below on each image what did so you can get an idea

Because basing was going to be standard across the force I decided to get all these out the way first.

I used some cork board to created a rocky landscape and covered the rest of the base in a fine sand I have for basing.

I’m going to used some Valhallan Blizzard to finish them off but this will be after I start painting and attach the models themselves.

Space Wolves have always had a big draw for me, when I was younger they we’re always just out of reach because I didn’t think I’d do them justice.

When I came back to the hobby a few years ago of course they were the first marines I went for. I went with the light blue Games Workshop paint scheme, I was really pleased and got loads of games in with them. I even then tried 30k and had a small force.

Over the years my painting has improved, at least I think so, I’m in no way amazing and much prefer to find quick schemes that allow me to get painted armies on the table than anything resembling golden demon entries.

So with the release of 9th Edition I decided now would be the time to re attempt a force and see what I can achieve. The first thing I did was have a look around at all that cool artwork that is out there for the spacewolves….and there is alot!

Having already build forces with the standard marines I wanted this to be a purely primaris force. Well with some of the older dreadnoughts as they’re awesome!!

The problem with the primaris marines is they’re definitely not wolfy enough so I knew I’d need to figure out how to convert them. Lots of spare bits and green stuff I think!

With them being a purely primaris force I though why not paint them with a bit of a twist. So instead I’ve decided to go down the old 30k style paint scheme. This way I can also use the cool forgeworld transfers. With the wolf head being red it made sense that this new force would become ‘The Red Wolves’ a space wolf successor chapter.

Lore wise I believe there was only one Primaris Space wolf successor chapter but in my mind if there was one there must be more! So that’s the plan anyway….